Thursday, January 1, 2015

Pringles Honey Butter Stix - Gift

Pringles Honey Butter Stix - Gift

This item was actually a gift from my bosses and their daughter. They originally bought a box of these for her lunches and after school snacks, and I won't spoil anything before I get into the review, but a little packet was sitting right on my desk when I came into work. Without any explanation, my boss told me I had to review and try it, and you'll see why...

This was a gift, so I only have the individual portion, and there's no box art for me to review, but the plastic packaging looks pretty nice. (Especially for a Pringles product.) I like the color scheme, the subtle little bees holding the sign, and the semi-realistic illustrations of honey and the product itself. All-in-all, I think this looks pretty nice, and I like it. (Worth noting: an individual pouch of Pocky with a berry flavored coating is less calories (70) than a packet of these (80) "stixs.")

I peeled open the package and, similar to Pocky, there were several biscuit sticks inside. There seem to be more sticks in this packet than you would get with Pocky or Pretz, but they also appear to be slightly thinner. I took a whiff, and dear god! These things smell awful. I'm not sure if it was the plastic pouch itself or the product, but this smelled really plastic-y, artificial, and chemical. There's a mild buttery aroma, like movie theater butter, and a general sweetness, but they are barely noticeable over the nose-burning plastic aroma. Nothing food-like should smell like this.

I took a few sticks out of the package to see if the smell really was them...AND IT WAS! What is wrong with these sticks? Why do they smell like this? I originally thought it had to be the packaging, but it isn't!

Bravely, I took a bite, and...no. No. No No. These taste like artificial pop corn butter, sugar, butter crackers, and plastic. The taste was so bad I didn't even want to finish one biscuit stick, let alone ever eat the rest of the contents of this package. Turns out, their daughter complained they she didn't want to eat these, her father (my boss) tried one to see if they really were that bad, and they were. These things were so bad he brought int a little packet just for me to review these and warn others.

Could something be wrong with the specific box they bought? These are honestly, really, really awful. Imagine Ritz crackers turned into a stick, sprayed with artificial honey and cooking spray, and left in a burning plastic container for a few hours. That's what this tasted like. I ate one stick in it's entirety, and after luring a few people into trying one as well and getting the same disgusted response, the rest of the pouch went right into the trash.

Have any of you tried these? Do they all taste this awful? I'm really curious. After a quick internet search, it seems like a lot of people really likethese things, so I'm starting to worry if my boss got a bad batch or something was tampered with. No one online mentions the awful burning plastic flavoring, and a lot of people seem to love this specific flavor.

I'm a little scared to buy my own box of these to test my bad batch theory out, because if they all taste like this, it'll be a huge waste of money, but now I'm actually a little worried. What did I just eat?